


Home Is Where Your Couch Is

by notmissmarple



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 15:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1610456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notmissmarple/pseuds/notmissmarple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I’m Stiles. Your neighbor right next door, like literally one window over, is my best friend, and when I’m stressed—which I am A LOT right now—he lets me crash and I’m really sorry I keep fucking up the windows but, jesus, now I’m embarrassed and I don’t even know why I said all that except thanks to your brilliant alarm clock I am now very, very awake and also I think my shirt is starting to chafe my nipples.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is Where Your Couch Is

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt (http://tickatocka.tumblr.com/post/85456038831/i-really-want-an-i-accidentally-broke-into-your): i really want an “i accidentally broke into your house/apartment because my friend lives next door to you and i was in the area, drunk, and i thought i was climbing into the right window and falling asleep on the right couch (and i did wonder when my friend got two cats but i didn’t question it) so now i’m hungover and shirtless in your living room so um hi howya doin” au
> 
> Huge thanks to metakate for the hand holding and prompt beta work!

Granted, it's been a while since Stiles made use of Scott's couch as a hostel, but man, his friends all need to get married if it means they going to upgrade their furniture to something this comfortable. (Stiles is also pretty sure he'd seen a La-Z-Boy before collapsing into the heap of throw pillows and nearly immediately falling into the sleep of the kinda high and maybe had a drink or five too many. He's not really sure that Scott is old enough to live somewhere that has a La-Z-Boy, let alone own one, but those fuckers are comfortable, so if Scott is moving up in the world, Stiles isn't about to complain.)

By the time the smell of coffee has him halfway to his senses, the sun is rudely announcing its presence through the living room window, and Stiles blinks against it, squinting as a dark shape comes into view.

A dark, well-muscled shape.

A scowling, dark, well-muscled shape.

Who is  _definitely_  not Scott.

"Shit. Um. I--" Stiles says, or tries to, but he's not quite all the way awake, and the side of his cheek is numb from where he was laying against his fist.

In one hand, the guy's holding Stiles' shirt, arm extended, as if it offends him. (In the other, he's holding his phone, presumably the better with which to call the cops.)

"Sorry. I just..." The words are at least coming out more clearly now, even if he can't quite get them to keep him from making an ass of himself. "Scott, he's in, uh, 105? Which is, I mean, you're not--"

The guy shakes Stiles' shirt at him, and Stiles looks down, only just now realizing that the guy holding his shirt means  _Stiles isn't wearing his shirt_. His arm instinctively moves to cover his nipples (and he's pretty sure the guy chuckles. Maybe. Or maybe he just scowls a little LESS hard) while he reaches for it with the other. His voice is muffled, then, through the sound of him pulling the shirt over his head. "Shit. I'm sorry. I was looking for Scott's place and, well, I'm gonna go. I don't suppose you've got a travel mug for some c--"

He cuts himself off with one last look at the guy's face, and is out the door before he even realizes the guy never said a word.

"Maybe next time I can buy you a coffee," he mutters under his breath at the closed door.

* * *

Stiles would like to say he's prepared the next time it happens, but seriously, there's just got to be something off about his bro-meter (or something incredibly ON about his hot-guy-meter), because he hadn't even had  _that_  much to drink, and he could've sworn it was Scott's window this time. On the plus side, he realizes this before snuggling in with those throw pillows (and who the fuck has a blanket that soft anyway?). On the down side, he realizes is just as Hot Dude comes out of his bathroom wearing only a towel.

"What are you doing here?"

Stiles facepalms, nearly punching himself as the words come out of his mouth because no really, how dumb could he sound?

The guy kind of looks like he'd like to punch Stiles in the face, too. "I live here. What are you doing on my couch?"

Stiles swallows, and wants to look away, but can't. It's like staring into the fucking sun.

"What?"

...he may have said some of that last part out loud. "Nothing. I mean. Could you, I don't know, put something on, or dry off, or…." He's pretty sure he's too old for the shade of red that his cheeks turn as he says this, but the way the water is running down the guy's neck would make a nun think impure thoughts, so he's not going to be embarrassed. (Mostly.) "Just, jesus, it's hard to--right. Going."

Stiles picks up his bag (his shirt thankfully still on his torso this time) and allows this scowl wearing an attractive man's body to usher him out into the hallway.

(Which is where Scott finds him, 45 minutes later, slowly killing brain cells as he bangs his head repeatedly on Scott's door.)

* * *

"Fuuuuuuuucckkkkkkk," Stiles manages to get out through shivering teeth and a racing heart. "You do that to everybody that sleeps on your couch?"

Scowl scowls harder, gently putting down the pitcher from which he'd just moments ago poured freezing cold water onto Stiles' head. "Only the ones who show up drunk."

"The thing is, I didn't even do it this time! I mean, I did it, not that I did  _it_  but I mean I walked here, but Scott's the one that helped me in! He even covered me!"

Scowly McMuscleface looks slowly around the apartment and taps his foot, waiting.

"...orrrrrrr, that could've been you?"

The smile that crosses the other guy's face isn't so much a smile as a threat.

"Look, I think we maybe got off on the wrong foot--"

"--Because you've been sneaking into my apartment and sleeping on my couch? You  _think_?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing!" Stiles coughs and rethinks his strategy. Or tries to, but his freezing wet shirt is sticking to his skin and starting to get uncomfortable. "I'm Stiles. Your neighbor  _right_  next door, like literally one window over, is my best friend, and when I'm stressed--which I am A LOT right now--he lets me crash and I'm really sorry I keep fucking up the windows but, jesus, now I'm embarrassed and I don't even know why I said all that except thanks to your brilliant alarm clock I am now  _very, very awake_ and also I think my shirt is starting to chafe my nipples."

It's almost as if Stiles is watching himself from somewhere else in the room, begging, pleading, trying to please shut himself the fuck up, but to no avail; his mouth keeps running.

But then the funniest thing happens. The guy's face isn't scowling anymore. Stiles isn't quite sure he'd call it a smile, and it's definitely not a grin, but maybe...a smirk? There's definitely a chuckle under there now, and when the guy turns his back, Stiles is almost sure he's not going to get the police officer that's been hiding in his bedroom to come out and arrest Stiles for B&E. (Okay, maybe like, 80% sure.) Stiles is vindicated when the guy comes back bearing a shirt, which Stiles takes gratefully before making a half-assed attempt at using his own wet shirt to try and clean up the guy's couch.

The guy just shrugs and actually laughs this time. "It's seen worse. It's not real leather, anyway."

Stiles manages to shoot back a sort of lopsided grin, and manages to mostly keep his shirt from dripping on the floor. "Well, uh. Sorry again...."

"Derek."

There's a beat of silence, while Stiles' brain attempts to catch up with just how awake his body is.

"Oh! That's you. Like, me Stiles, you Derek." Stiles manages  _not_  to slap himself across the face at the drivel coming out of his mouth, but only just. "I mean, uh. Right. Derek. Sorry. I'll just see myself out."

He's turning the doorknob when a hand falls lightly on his shoulder, and he turns around to see Derek holding a travel mug out to him.

* * *

"Wait, so he poured ice water over you and  _then_  gave you coffee?"

"This is what I'm saying!"

"Those are some weird mixed messages."

"This is what I'm saying!"

"And it's apartment 103, you said?"

Stiles just glares at the wall between the two apartments.

"You know that's Derek, right?"

"THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING!"

"Derek HALE?"

Stiles nearly chokes on the coffee he's drinking. The coffee he's drinking out of the travel mug Derek had handed him. The coffee mug that says  _Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department_  on it.

Because of  _course_  it would so happen that the guy whose apartment he's been breaking into these last few weeks, the hottest guy he's seen (well, in person, because porn doesn't count for this sort of thing), the guy who could LITERALLY have had him arrested three times over...is his dad's newest deputy.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck."

Scott, the asshole, just grins at him. "That's what I'm saying."

* * *

Stiles is relatively certain the coast is clear as he makes his way into the Sheriff's Office. He's not sneaking in. His dad  _works_  there. His dad's the Sheriff! He's been going there since he couldn't even see over the desks! He totally belongs there!

He keeps repeating this to himself in true Stuart Smalley fashion until Roberta at the front desk gives him a  _look_  that tells him perhaps he ought to play up the sane a little bit more. He takes a deep breath and smiles at her, and she smiles back, and he can do this, he's calm, he's cool, he's colle--

He's running straight into Derek Hale, in full uniform.

ALERT. ALERT. He is NOT cool, calm, or collected.

But he can do this. He's got this. He's an adult now, and can have adult conversations with other adults without going brainless.

"Chocolate here cup in your." His hand jerks out as if he has no control over it, and if it were possible to get to the nearest desk and hide under it until Derek forgot he was even alive, Stiles would be willing to give it a go. But it's almost worth his death via mortification, because Derek's lips actually curve up into something a normal person would call a smile. Stiles only has maybe half a second before he has to rethink that reprieve from death, when an all too familiar hand claps down on Derek's shoulder.

"So, I see you've met my newest deputy. Hale, this is my son--"

"Stiles. Yes, sir," chimes in Derek, because he obviously hates Stiles and wants him to die.

The Sheriff looks awkwardly from Stiles to Derek, and back to Stiles, with his gaze lingering on the mug in-between, and raises a knowing eyebrow. Stiles wants to bury his head in his hoodie and never come out.

"Derek transferred in from New York a month or so ago," his dad says, giving him a look that says there is no way he's going to escape without a very intense conversation later, "but he grew up here, didn't you, Derek? I was just asking him how he liked being back in California."

The grin that had shown up on Derek's face a few minutes earlier breaks into a full-on innocent grin as he looks first at the Sheriff, and then right into Stiles' eyes. "It's fantastic. I especially love being able to sleep with my windows open."

Stiles drops the mug on the floor, Hershey kisses spilling everywhere. For a moment, there is complete and utter silence in the bullpen. Nobody types. Nobody talks. No phone even dares to ring.

The Sheriff clears his throat. "Well…." Noise resumes, and Stiles thanks whatever god there may be looking out for him that the whole station doesn't have to hear the rest of this. "...Derek and I were going to go out to lunch, but I think perhaps the two of you might have a few things to...discuss. Stiles, I'll see you for dinner at 7. That's not a request."

Stiles just nods at his dad and then does his best impression of a 6-year-old near a piñata in his hasty attempt to clean up the spilled chocolates. By the time he realizes that Derek is helping and his dad is long gone, he's calmed down a little bit, and is able to actually breathe as he sits back against a nearby desk, head clacking against the thin metal.

Derek looks almost amused, and if Stiles had the energy, he'd want to wipe that smug smile off Derek's face, but instead he's just resigned. It starts with a deep breath, and expands into a chuckle. From there it's full out laughter until there are tears on Stiles' face and he's sure he sounds a little manic as he picks the last of the kisses off the floor and hands it to Derek rather than putting it back in the mug. "Considering I just publicly humiliated not just an officer of the law, but one who reports directly to my father, I may as well go for harassment as well. Dinner?"

Derek's fingers linger over Stiles' as he takes the kiss, and he laughs. "I'm pretty sure you passed harassment a few weeks ago." But he's still smiling, and then he's helping Stiles up to his feet and taking the travel mug to put on his desk. "You've got dinner with your dad, remember? But if you want to come over after, this time you can use the door."


End file.
